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GENERAL SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (GSA) 21 DAYS TO RESPOND TO ARCHIVE; OUTSTANDING REQUESTS AS OLD AS 1 YEAR

Recordkeeping Issues - GSA's correspondence indicated that its eleven regional FOIA offices are responsible for administering their own FOIA programs and that their pending requests were not included in the response.

Ten Oldest - GSA responded approximately 21 business days after the request was made; it reported ten FOIA requests ranging from September 24, 2002 to December 6, 2002. The requests included news media requests for materials relating to a security guard service contract in Region 10 and offenses and incidents at government facilities in Region 10, a commercial request for contract materials concerning a security guard service contract in place for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, a commercial request for contact information for project officers of active contracts, a commercial request for documentation regarding the bundling of services under GSA's national broker contract, a news media report regarding studies of the presence of asbestos and asbestos abatement efforts at federal facilities, a request for documents related to contracts with MCI Worldcom and Verizon, and a contract, schedule and list price relating to a specified contract.

Workload Statistics - Although GSA's reported statistics from 1998 through 2002 indicate that the agency has received a decreasing number of FOIA requests (down 19.08% from 1798 in 1998 to 1455 in 2002), the number processed each year also has decreased (down 30.62% from 2028 processed in 1998 to 1407 processed in 2002). GSA's processing rate per year -- a comparison of the number of requests processed to the number received -- increased from 91.15% in 1998 to 96.70% in 2002.

Backlog Statistics - GSA's backlog of pending FOIA requests has decreased over the five year period, although it has increased for each of the last three reporting years (from 166 FOIA requests pending at the end of 1998 to 141 FOIA requests pending at the end of 2002). GSA's backlog as a percentage of FOIA requests processed each year has increased from 8.19% in 1998 to 10.02% in 2002. Its backlog rate per year -- a comparison of the number of requests pending at the end of the year to the number received during that year -- has increased from 7.46% in 1998 to 9.69% in 2002.

Processing Time - While its median days to process has ranged from 14-20 days over the 1998-2002 period, the median days that backlogged requests have been pending has ranged from 18-29 days. No processing times are reported for expedited requests.

 

TEN OLDEST REQUESTS

GSA Response Letter

GSA September 13, 2002 Letter

GSA September 24, 2002 Letter

GSA September 25, 2002 Letter

GSA October 1, 2002 (1) Letter

GSA October 1, 2002 (2) Letter

GSA October 8, 2002 Letter

GSA October 11, 2002 Letter

GSA October 17, 2002 Letter

GSA November 25, 2002 Letter

GSA December 6, 2002 Letter